The Nielsen Data Visualization Contest featured many great submissions and terrific fan turnout. Congratulations to Ashish Naidu - the winner of the Fan Favorite award. As the winner, Ashish will receive $2,000 in American Express Rewards cards and other prizes, and joins Judge’s Choice winner Dustin Poh.

“My passion about data analysis got me interested in this contest” said Ashish, who’s entry reflects the promise of social media to improve customer experiences. While Ashish doesn’t work day-to-day as a designer, he has completed some data visualization training as part of his work for clients. “Data visualization is used for serious business decision making and when the information needs to be monitored at a glance,” he said, “Whereas infographics communicate information in the form of a story. It helps to unveil hidden relationships between the data.”

The contest came down to a “photo finish,” between Ashish's design and another standout visualization, created by Fan Favorite runner-up, Megan Hillman.

Megan is soon to graduate from Ohio University, where infographics are part of her curriculum as a design student. “I like to do side projects outside (of the classroom), not only to gain experience, but also to challenge myself” said Megan about her interest in the Nielsen contest. When designing her inforgraphic entry, she had to first “understand it myself in order to explain it to others.” Using bar charts that focused on stats that had “more visual potential,” Megan’s approach was “to show the viewer rather than tell”, which she says can help businesses by making familiar data “more likely to be remembered than if it was just read.”

Congrats again to Ashish Naidu as the Fan Favorite winner, to Megan Hillman on her excellent showing, and to Judge’s Choice winner Dustin Poh. Thanks also to all the finalists, participants, and voters in the first Nielsen Data Visualization Contest.